Stones on Top

By 1967, Brian's involvement with the band was shrinking, and Mick and Keith were becoming first-class songwriters in league with heavyweights like John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles. There were many changes taking place for the band around this time, and at the end of the year, a whole new Rolling Stones would emerge.

To start with, their album Between the Buttons was the last one that credited Andrew Loog Oldham as producer. He had been behind the boards for all of their recordings up until this point, but by this time, he was finding that they didn't need him anymore. On September 14, the band released a statement that they had officially parted ways with Andrew Loog Oldham, leaving Allen Klein as their sole manager.

Toward the end of that year, they released another album, Their Satanic Majesties Request. The sinisterly titled album was unlike anything the Stones had ever done, and without Andrew, they decided to simply produce it themselves. Stones purists did not like the album all that much and many critics thought it was confused sounding. Critics today believe, however, that it was a revolution in sound.

To many, it seemed like the Stones were trying to cash in on the popularity of the psychedelic sounds the Beatles had made popular with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and it looked like the Stones had really lost their sure footing. People thought they were too experimental and too different—they even had Bill Wyman singing lead vocals on one track! Today, as is often the case, the album is looked at as a fresh, original diamond in the rough, but at the time, it was a bit of a failure.

Not only were the Stones not seeing eye-to-eye with the public, tensions within the band were reaching a new high. Brian's girlfriend, Anita, had decided to run off with Keith, and the two band mates, who had once been like a right and left hand as guitarists, were no longer speaking. Now that Keith was not getting along with Brian, he and Mick were even closer than before, and it was crystal clear whose band the Rolling Stones was.